


Summer Vacation (Part 1)

by brainofck



Series: Summer Vacation [1]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Choose Your Own Ending, First Time, Lunada Bay, M/M, Philosophy, Poetry, Surfing, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-26
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-12-24 16:34:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/942143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brainofck/pseuds/brainofck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack travels back in time and interrupts the summer vacation of a recently dissertated Daniel Jackson, PhD, PhD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Vacation (Part 1)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lokei](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokei/gifts).



> Written for the 2008 J/D Ficathon. 
> 
> I am writing for the wonderful Lokei. She requested:
> 
> Two (2) Requirements: 1\. first time 2\. Jack or Daniel reading aloud Optional Request: I like early seasons better, AU's can be fun, happy endings (or at least hopeful ones) are the best. I please easily. *grin* Restriction #1: no mpreg Restriction #2: no non-con

> 
> [The last two restrictions actually being somewhat important since she got _me_ as a writer! :) ]
> 
> gave me a beautiful Jack with wings, so I was especially happy to be able to do something nice for her. Lokei, I hope you like it!
> 
> Special thanks to Tejas, Avidrosette, and Green_Grrl, [who helped me with ideas about what Jack and Daniel might be reading to each other](http://brainofck.livejournal.com/250217.html). You are all fantastic, and prizes must be written. Yes. They must.
> 
> And happy belated birthday to Daniel Jackson. Next year, the due date for the ficathon should be his birthday! :D

Jack hit the floor hard, rolling across the cold tile, his tumble stopped when his head and shoulders slammed into something large and immovable.

With a groan he pulled himself to his feet, hands finding his weapon even as he tried to shake off the impact. His quick survey of the immediate area revealed...

"What the hell?" he muttered.

No SG-1, though that didn't surprise him. 

But a dusty academic office?

Yeah. Totally not what he was expecting.

The broken pieces of an obelisk very much like the one that had zapped him lay in broken pieces, reassembled on a long table down the side of the workroom.

Obviously it must have been reassembled enough to act as the receiver for whatever the first obelisk had done to him. He supposed he should be happy to be in one piece at some random university somewhere, rather than lost in some Limbo of half-teleported souls.

He took another look around the office. There was a discarded newspaper lying on the broken-down, stained couch on the wall opposite the long work table. 

Jack snatched it up, keeping an eye on the door. He was completely out of place here and he could imagine about ten different scenarios that could result from people walking through that door, ranging from embarrassing, to totally humiliating, to really, really bad. Eight of them were really, really bad. What could he say? He made a living being paranoid.

It was _The Los Angeles Times_. 

Jack breathed a genuine sigh of relief. That meant he was just a phone call away from resolution. He was just tossing the paper aside when he the title of an editorial caught his eye: "The last minutes of Robert Stethem: Reagan, Terror, and TWA Flight 847."

"Shit," he whispered, checking the date line.

July 8, 1985.

It couldn't be a coincidence.

Daniel's birthday, 1985. And he knew it was Daniel's birthday, because today, July 8, 2000, they were planning a fun little surprise party in the Gateroom when they got back from P5X-432.

"Dammit, Daniel," he said, finally letting the paper fall back onto the couch.

Desert camo and full field gear weren't going to go over well. Jack moved quietly and carefully through the thankfully mostly deserted hallways. He dodged in and out of empty classrooms and offices to avoid professors and students.

As he waited in one office he noted a purse on the floor behind the desk. He made a face as he grabbed it up and found the wallet, pulling out the cash. Lucky him, it was a couple hundred bucks. He hoped he was stealing a tenured professor's mad money and not some poor TA's rent. The hallway clear, he continued down the corridor.

Jack moved up, not down, taking stairs until he found what he was looking for. He opened the locked door easily, slipping out onto the roof of the building. He stashed his gear and ordinance under a moldy tarp behind the elevator unit, on the side away from the access door. 

There wasn't a lot he could do about his appearance. He was too old to be a student dressed in trendy camo gear, but maybe he could pass for a weekend soldier or a guy off duty. He stripped off his tac vest and the rest of his gear, down to his plain brown t-shirt, his pants and his boots. That would have to do.

He took a deep breath and headed back to the office with the broken obelisk. It was time to find Daniel.

"I think he's a visiting professor or something," the cute blond student said around her gum. God save him from Madonna.

"Nah, he's just on vacation," the older woman – Jack guessed grad student – disagreed. "Dr. Knowles asked him to come back and have a look at this," she gestured broadly to the reassembled stele. "But he's spent as much time surfing and going to French poetry lectures as he's spent in here. We still can't figure out what this was doing in Giza."

Jack's knowledgeable eye took in the runes and he kept his mouth firmly closed. Whatever Thor had been up to in Giza, he wasn't going to try to explain it to the Egyptologists of UCLA circa 1985.

"I think it's his birthday today," the Madonna-wannabe said, twirling one of her many noisy necklaces.

"Yeah, I know," Jack replied, trying to sound cheerful rather than grim. "Any chance he mentioned what he was going to be up to today? Or maybe you've got a number for him?"

Daniel wouldn't have a cell phone, but he might have an answering machine.

"Dr. Knowles' son is in Europe this summer, so Dr. Jackson is staying at his place. The number's on the wall. James Knowles." The grad student waved to a bulletin board in the corner. Jack grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and scribbled down the number.

"I think he hangs out at Lunada Bay[1]," the blond girl supplied.

"Thanks," Jack said, with a smile. "If you see him, could you tell him I was looking for him?"

"Sure," said the grad student as she bent to more closely examine one of the breaks in the stone. "Do you want to leave a note?"

Jack stopped to think. 

"I actually don't know where I'm staying yet," he said slowly. "Is there any place around here I could ask him to meet me?"

"He'll probably be at the Rimbaud lecture tonight. English Reading Room." The girl smacked her gum again.

"Thanks," Jack said, already wondering where the hell Lunada Bay was and how he was going to get there.

* * *

In the end, he took a cab.

"You don't sound like you're from around here," the driver said.

"Nope. Minnesota," Jack replied.

"You sure you want Lunada Bay?" the driver asked him. "Just 'cause. You know. You don't look like a surfer. And you don't sound like you're from around here."

"Nooo," Jack said. "And yes, Lunada Bay's the place."

"Alright, then," the driver said, sounding uncertain.

Jack shrugged. Couldn't be worse than BP6-3Q1. He settled back to watch 1985 pass by his window. Where was he in '85? Latin America somewhere. Banana Republic dictators and commies. Good times. Less complicated.

The cab dropped him off at a sandy parking lot near a footpath that crawled down the steep hillside to the beach. Not much of a beach, either, Jack noted. Rocky and narrow, with hardly any space between the foot of the cliffs and the pounding surf. 

He looked out over the panorama and wondered which way to Daniel and how long it would take to track him down. Maybe he should have found out the address of the Knowles kid's place, and waited for Daniel there. He grimaced, wishing he had thought of that sooner. This whole time travel thing had him off kilter. Los Angeles shouldn't freak him out more than a trip to another planet, after all.

Well, too late now. He turned his attention back to getting from the top to the bottom. It was really more of a climb than a walk. The guys who did this with a surf board were Froot Loops. Of course, the guys who surfed waves like that... He eyed the breakers. He definitely preferred to see the ocean from inside a boat.

He skidded and slid to the bottom, more interested in speed than elegance. About three-quarters of the way to the beach, the slope changed to a steep incline of scree.

And by the time he got there, he found three very large men waiting for him.

"Hey, old guy!" Yelled the skinniest one. "Did you fall over the edge or something?"

"Yeah, old guy. I think you're at the wrong place," warned the heavily-muscled blonde one. "The only thing to do here is catch breakers, and you ain't got a board anyway."

The guy with all the tats just stood behind the other two, glowering at him menacingly as the three of them stood at the bottom of the slope, waiting.

Jack wondered if he could make Daniel's peaceful explorer schtick work for him. Well, if not, he could always fall back on age and treachery. _Old man,_ his ass. He'd teach these whippersnappers a thing or two. He stared down Teal'c's glower at least once a day. None of these kids was First Prime material.

He started down the final, steep, rocky descent.

"Yeah, I can see that. Look, I don't want any trouble. I'm just trying to find a friend of mine, Daniel Jackson. Maybe you know him? He's working on a project I need to talk to him about and his grad student said I could find him around here."

The skinny one turned to the blonde one. 

"What do you think, Bonzer? Is he a professor?" To Jack's surprise, they actually looked like they might be considering backing down. 

"He _is_ looking for Doc," Bonzer agreed.

"Yeah, well, if he's a friend of Doc, then what's he doing here? Doc's friends don't hang out on the beach," said the tat guy. "Look at him. He's military, not a professor. And I don't think Doc wants to talk to some bastard in combat boots, do you?"

And with that, they seemed to come to a mutual agreement.

 _Crap_ , Jack thought. He really preferred to avoid using Special Ops techniques on civilians when he could help it, but three guys this big? Jack was going to have to fight dirty. And even though he was confident he could handle them, he couldn't help wishing T was there to take Bonzer down for him. He sighed. He really must be getting old.

Still, it was over in just a little more than five minutes, so Jack didn't feel _too_ old when all was said and done. Though Bonzer did clock him pretty good there at the end.

He rubbed his newly sore jaw as he backed away from them. No point giving them a chance to tackle him from behind when he wasn't looking, even if at the moment they all appeared to be much more interested in rolling around in the dirt in pain.

"'Old guy,'" Jack muttered. "That'll teach you to respect your elders," he said to them. "And stay off my lawn!" he yelled cheerfully. Nothing like winning a good fistfight to make you more optimistic about the rest of the day. When he thought he was safely away he turned and took the beach at a jog, listening for anybody following him and keeping a keen eye out not just for lounging beach-bum archaeologists, but also for more natives, as the natives did not seem to be friendly. 

He did hope he was going the right way. It would be a bummer to have to figure out how to get back to the university on his own.

Jack found Daniel lying on a blanket in practically the only pocket of sandy beach he had seen. He was lying on his stomach, reading a small paperback, with a couple of other books stacked on the blanket next to him. That was how Jack knew it had to be Daniel. Who else would have climbed down to this rocky beach with not one, but several, books?

Jack would hardly have recognized him otherwise. Sprawled on his stomach, bare feet dangling in the air. Long, garishly colored board shorts clinging wetly to his pert, but still-scrawny, ass. Hair sun-blond and too long. This was not his Daniel, fifteen years older, muscled like a Marine, hair short and now darker from spending so much less time digging in the dirt – or playing on the beach. Daniel who never went barefoot anymore. Jack resisted the sudden urge to delicately trace the arch of the nearest sandy foot. He reminded himself that he was in the middle of some sort of time travel disaster and this was _so not_ the time to let his little Daniel Jackson crush run away with him.

His shadow fell over Daniel's page.

"Listen to this," Daniel said, without looking up.

_Et dès lors, je me suis baigné dans le Poème De la Mer, infusé d'astres, et lactescent, Dévorant les azurs verts ;_ [2] 


The French rolled off his tongue melodically, lush and fluid. 

"... infusé d'astres..." Daniel murmured to himself again.

"Yeah, but then the corpse comes floating by, [3]" Jack replied. "Never fails." 

Daniel tipped his head back to look up at him. He wore dark, dark glasses. His face and bare arms were a perfect, even tan. 

"You're not Holly," he observed.

"Hello, Daniel," Jack said, settling down to sit on the sand next to him.

Daniel pushed himself upright tossing the book aside. He gave Jack an appraising look.

"Well, he's getting better at it, I have to give him credit," Daniel stated.

"Who's getting better at what?" Jack asked.

"Bonzer. He tends to go for big, shaggy-haired, dark-skinned, weight-lifter types. Personally, I think that says more about his taste in men than mine. He says he thinks I look good with them, and apparently doesn't even realize what _that_ sounds like, considering he insists he's straight. But you're a real switch…" Daniel's eyes strayed over Jack's chest, gaze catching on the outline of his tags under the thin fabric of his shirt. "Older…uniformed services. Never would have thought Bonzer had a uniform kink..."

Jack blinked at him a little stupidly. Of all the receptions he could have imagined, this was not the one he was expecting, though his stomach did a little flip-flop hearing Daniel say the words "uniform kink."

"I think – um, sorry – maybe you've got the wrong idea," Jack stammered, realizing that maybe he should have interrupted young Daniel's flood of observation a lot sooner. Like before Daniel's description of Bonzer's taste in men had Jack imagining Daniel and Teal'c, which he definitely agreed with Bonzer, would be a very pretty picture. He squeezed his eyes shut. Not thinking that again. No way. _Jesus, get a_ grip _O'Neill!_

He opened his eyes to see Daniel sitting there, hardly more than a boy, with salt in his gold-streaked hair and wearing a t-shirt that said, _Egyptologists do it in the sand!_ with hand-written annotations, _Linguists do it with their tongues,_ and, more obscurely, _Archeologists do it with a brush._ Like some twisted version of that fantasy Jack had where he pulled Daniel into a supply closet after Daniel delivered a particularly arrogant lecture to a batch of new airmen. Except now he was imagining bending him over a lecturn after all the undergrads had been dismissed. 

"They said in the department that you might be here. What _do_ archaeologists do with a brush?" he asked, trying to recover, gesturing to the shirt.

Jack imagined Daniel's eyes going wide behind the shades, though all he could see was his eyebrows going up.

"Oh. Sorry," he said. "I'm on vacation. Not really expecting colleagues to come find me on the beach. I hope nobody gave you any trouble. They can be a little 'local' around here, if you know what I mean?" Daniel was just getting ready to panic, Jack could tell, speaking faster and faster, hands getting involved.

"Calm down, Danny, I'm not a 'colleague,'" he said, complete with air quotes. "I'm a friend of yours. I mean. I will be."

And no, that didn't make him sound like a crazy, lunatic stalker. Belatedly he considered that if this was time travel, and it probably was, that he should probably be careful what he said. 

"Will be?" Daniel asked, tension dropping away from him as quickly as it had come. He infused the two words with seductive interest.

"Yeah. I can't explain it exactly, but I know you, or I guess, I will know you, about ten years from now. I think I've somehow travelled though time. Or else I'm lying in the infirmary having a really interesting concussion-induced dream." 

Jack winced as Daniel tipped his head and looked at him, apparently more amused by the moment.

"I need your help, Daniel. I don't know how I got here, but I think it has something to do with that broken monument you're working on. I'm hoping that if you look at it with my help we can figure out how to send me back."

"Bonzer should have told you not to work so hard," Daniel said, finally huffing out a laugh. "I'm easy this summer. If you want to come home with me, all you have to do is say so."

Jack resisted the urge to sigh and scrub at his face in frustration. 

"I'm not kidding, Daniel. I'm stranded here. No cash, no place to go. We were... I stashed a bunch of really bad stuff on the roof of your building so I wouldn't get arrested on the street as some kind of deranged Vietnam vet or something. I need you to help me figure out how to turn that thing back on and send be back to the future so I don't screw up the timeline and..."

Daniel was smirking at him.

" _Back to the Future_ , huh?" he asked, clearly amused.

"Daniel," Jack said firmly.

"Come on," Daniel said, jumping up and offering a hand to Jack. "I'm hungry. Let's go back."

Jack took the hand up, fingers closing around Daniel's wrist, Daniel's own warm, callused palm tight on Jack's forearm.

"So this is your idea of a vacation, huh? Sitting on a rocky beach guarded by surfer dudes and reading poetry by moody French teenagers?" Jack grumbled. "I should have known."

"Hey. That's a great classic of modern literature," Daniel replied, with no real affront in his tone. "Plus, you forgot the part where I sleep with anybody who will fall into bed with me."

"A real Boehme," Jack replied, holding back the warning about AIDS and other diseases. Daniel didn't have them, so that meant he wasn't going to catch them.

Daniel made a neat bundle of books and blanket and stuck them in a day pack, which he tossed in Jack's direction. Jack caught it without thinking. Daniel slung his board under his arm and led Jack along the beach, thankfully, away from the scene of Jack's encounter with Bonzer and company.

"Uh. Your friend Bonzer… He and his buddies might be a little unhappy with me," Jack settled the pack more comfortably over one shoulder. 

"Really?" Daniel asked. "I assume since you're here, with just the beginnings of a slight bruise on your face, that you must have… Wow. Did you take all three of them?!" Daniel asked, spinning around and staring at him in amazement.

Jack shrugged modestly. Daniel was giving him a newly appreciative once-over. Jack tried not to be self-conscious about Daniel eyeing him like a particularly tasty piece of meat.

"Watch where you're going," Jack reminded him gruffly, pointing to the path Daniel was now walking backwards.

Daniel laughed, a big, loud, happy laugh, with a huge grin to go with it. Jack could hardly remember Daniel laughing like that. He turned around again and walked faster, taking a short, well-defined foot path up to the cliff face, which when they got to it, wasn't too bad. The narrow path clung to the hillside, but allowed them to go up one behind the other. Daniel climbed across a few precarious places one-handed, like he had done it a hundred times before. While not as bad as Jack had expected the climb out to be, it was still strenuous, and they didn't talk on the way to the top.

Of course, the foot path didn't just go to the top. It stopped about three feet below. Daniel tossed his board over and pulled himself up. Jack clambered up to find himself in another sandy parking lot.

Bonzer and Company were standing by the only vehicle in sight, a beaten up old Jeep with the top off.

"Hey, guys!" Daniel said cheerfully. "What happened to you?"

"Nothin' much, Doc," Bonzer replied, limping towards Jack, stopping just out of arm's reach. His two friends spread out to flank him, the skinny guy with his clearly broken nose and tat guy with his arm tucked in against his ribs. Jack moved to put some distance between himself and the edge. 

"You know this guy? Because if you don't we're tossing him over. Seriously, please say you don't know him."

Daniel watched the unfolding scene with surprised alarm, eyes cutting to Jack, but he recovered fast, putting on a relaxed smile.

"Oh, yeah! He's here to ask me about a project I'm working on this summer down at the department. I hope you guys didn't go too hard on him when he came down. I wasn't expecting him today."

Bonzer forced a smile. It came out far too predatory for a beach bum.

"Well, any friend of yours is a friend of ours! What do we call him?"

"Mac," Jack replied easily, picking one of his old favorite cover names. "Everybody calls me Mac." He sauntered by Bonzer, and made a beeline for Daniel's Jeep.

Daniel took the hint, not dawdling, putting his board into the back quickly and efficiently and hopping up into the driver's seat.

"Sorry, guys. I need to get Mac over to Dr. Knowles. Maybe we can talk another time."

"No problem, Doc," Tat Guy said.

Daniel backed out of the sand lot onto a dirt road and headed out toward the paved street, leaving the three men staring balefully after them.

"Thanks a lot," Daniel said, glaring at him. "I don't think I'll be going back there. That's the best surfing in the continental United States, I'll have you know."

"Yeah, like you're some big surfer dude," Jack replied, rolling his eyes.

Daniel divided his attention between Jack and the road, but he didn't say anything, and Jack wasn't interested in having a screaming conversation in the open jeep, so for the second time that day, he sat quietly watching the past fly by him.

Daniel's place wasn't far. A rundown house clinging to the cliff side about ten minutes further down the shore.

"Nice view," Jack commented as Daniel set his board down on the porch. Daniel made a hum of agreement and unlocked the door.

"So. Not some guy Bonzer picked up for me at Muscle Beach," Daniel said thoughtfully. "Who exactly are you, then, 'Mac?'" he asked.

"Yeah, about that," Jack replied. "How many of those guys have you brought back here, anyway?" Not that it was any business of his to be worried about his young friend. It had all turned out fine in the end. Daniel's misspent youth was none of Jack's business.

Daniel turned away, walking through the remarkably neat living room to the kitchen, where he opened the fridge. Jack didn't miss the blush, though.

"Not that many," he said, tossing cheese and deli meats onto the counter. "None, actually," he admitted after a long pause.

"Okay," Jack said, feeling slightly confused.

Daniel shut the fridge and leaned against it.

"They all kind of scared me," Daniel admitted, with a snort.

"Oh, and I, vanquisher of Bonzer, Tat Guy, and That Kinda Skinny Guy, don't?!" Jack said, taking mock offense.

Daniel glared at him.

"Holly," he replied, though it wasn't clear exactly which guy was supposed to be Holly. "And plus, I don't think sex should just be about two people being naked or two guys getting their cocks out," he said defensively. "I'm pretty sure that's all those Muscle Beach guys were interested in. Getting their dick's up my boy-cunt and then getting back to pumping iron."

"Daniel, when you hook up like you were talking about earlier, that's sort of the whole point," Jack said

"Yeah, and you would know about that?" Daniel asked, turning to the task of assembling really disgusting looking sandwiches with plastic-wrapped cheese and pre-packaged Buddig sandwich meat and big glops of mayonnaise.

Jack gestured broadly to his clothing.

"A guy like me knows what it's like when a couple of guys get together for a little stress relief. It's not kisses and roses, Daniel. You have to be realistic about what you're getting into."

"Maybe the barracks experience isn't the same as the civilian experience," Daniel muttered.

"Well, a little bit not," Jack agreed, thinking about battlefield stress and being far, far from home and missing the hell out of Sara, but God, needing some kind of outlet, some sort of vent before the pressure blew him sky high. So he’d listen to the sounds in the dark, not knowing who it was, not caring, and he’d let it bring him to where he needed to go in his head, jerking off with acoustic accompaniment, a three-man band, if you will. The memories of it made him sigh. "But mostly, it's opportunistic fucking between two guys who like cock," Jack shrugged. "Which was the impression I got from you on the beach. That you were looking to fuck anybody who offered their dick, basically." 

Daniel whirled around, gesturing dangerously with the mayonnaise-covered butter knife.

"I want to be in love with my lover," he declared. "I mean, not necessarily to live with them forever. But I want them to be a person. I want to remember _that person_ and every minute with them. I want the sex to have impact, to be part of something larger, to be a common landmark in our emotional lives. Not to be some meaningless animal act of rutting. Not just an exchange of sperm and a sore ass that fades almost as fast as the smell of sex."

He blinked a little at his own tirade, turning quickly back to the fridge to find a tomato and some lettuce in the depths of the vegetable drawer.

Jack was alarmed to find he was getting hard, faced with a passionate Daniel waxing lyrical about animal rutting and making love. He averted his eyes from Daniel's ass.

"I thought you were 'easy this summer,'" Jack couldn't stop himself from muttering. He could practically feel the heat of Daniel's glare.

Jack wasn't surprised to see the kitchen table strewn with books and notepaper, a half-consumed mug of coffee leaving a stain on the cover of a thick academic journal.

A paperback with a broken spine flopped open by the only chair. The text was in French. Jack flipped the cover: Memoires D'Hadrien. In neat print on the piece of looseleaf paper, Daniel had written in the middle of the page, "…that calm so propitious for work and for discipline of the mind seems to me one of the richest results of love."

Daniel had emerged from his refrigerator explorations.

"It's really an amazing passage," Daniel said quietly. "Hadrian is writing about his love for Antinous, a beautiful, dreaming boy that has become his lover."

Jack cut a look over to him, wrinkling his nose.

"Young man, whatever," Daniel said, waving off Jack's unspoken disapproval.

Daniel picked up the book, but rather than reading in French, he translated as he read.

"…and what is the act of love, itself, if not a moment of passionate attention on the part of the body? Every bliss achieved is a masterpiece; the slightest error turns it awry, and it alters with one touch of doubt; any heaviness detracts from its charm, the least stupidity renders it dull."

Jack found himself mesmerized by Daniel's reading. He had seen Daniel do this before, of course, translate a carving on a statue or tablet or the page of a crumbling text, reading it aloud like it was clearly typed in English. But that had always been work. Even if Daniel infused it all with the joy of new discovery, what Daniel read to him always applied to the mission at hand.

Watching Daniel's lips form the words "bliss" and "body" and "masterpiece," Jack was starting to forget what the mission was.

Daniel looked up from the page and found Jack watching him. He wore a fading smile.

"I don't know what it is about you," Daniel finally said. "I met you an hour ago, but I feel like I _know_ you." Daniel was blushing again, but he didn't look away. "I want you, but I want to translate for you, too. I want to take you to Egypt and show you the tomb I found last summer. I want…" He trailed away.

"You don't know anything about me," Jack replied, his fingers itching to feel the heat in Daniel's cheeks. "'…the least stupidity', he said. If you knew anything about me, you would know you're heading for disaster." How big a disaster would it be to make love to Daniel ten years before he met him? Really big? Just a little bit big? Jack pretended his hind brain wasn't actively considering the unthinkable.

Daniel snorted and grinned.

"You're not stupid," he said confidently.

Jack always liked that about Daniel. He was never really fooled by the dumb colonel routine.

Daniel picked up the plate of sandwiches and walked out of the room again.

Jack opened the fridge, grabbed the remains of the six pack he had spied on the bottom shelf, and followed him.

He went out onto the back deck. It overhung the edge, and seemed suspended in nothingness.

"I wouldn't want to be in this house for the next big quake," he said, popping the lid on a bottle and handing it to Daniel, who was already lounging in one of the adirondack chairs. Daniel's other hand was full of sandwich, so Jack reached over and snagged the plate from off his lap. The crappy sandwiches were looking awfully good. He hadn't eaten anything since breakfast – hours ago.

"So. You weren't at the beach to pick me up, and you certainly didn't come seeking Dr. Daniel Jackson of the Twenty-Three Languages just to hear my ruminations on the meaning of meaningless sex," Daniel said. 

"Like I said, I'm interested in the artifact in your office," Jack said.

"Why?" Daniel asked.

"Like I said…" Jack began, starting to feel slightly annoyed.

Daniel cut him off.

"The _real_ reason," Daniel said sharply, "Not the _Back to the Future_ reason."

Jack thought fast and decided it was better to give up on the truth and go for something… mostly true.

"Because I've seen one like it," he replied, taking another bite of sandwich.

"Nobody's ever seen one like it. That's why Dr. Knowles is putting me up in prime beachfront property for the summer."

" _Back to the Future_ ," Jack muttered, but in response to Daniel's renewed glare, said, "A stele, found in Egypt, covered in Ancient Norse runes," Jack said quietly. "It reminds me of…" 

He was about to say, _Thor's Hammer_ , but caught himself, because then he might have to explain, and then it hit him, exactly what he could do here. He could warn Daniel about Thor's Hammer. Daniel could stop them from taking Teal'c through to Cimmeria. They could keep Thor's Hammer intact. 

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. He wasn't Carter. He wasn't ready to face the decisions and ramifications that time travel implied. What could he safely change? Anything? Nothing? He might be able to save Thor's Hammer as a means to free Skarra and Sha'uri, but what would be the further impact of that? In his own timeline, Sha'uri had already been dead for months.

In fact, he could warn Daniel about a lot of things. About Ra. About Apophis.

He could warn other people. It sure would be nice not to spend so much time in Iraq. 

Then his breath stopped.

Charlie.

"What?" Daniel asked, slightly impatient at Jack's long silence, but mostly distracted by his lunch.

Jack didn't know how he managed to choke out a reply through his suddenly clogged throat.

"An artifact dedicated to the god Thor, in my own collection," he said. "Not so much dedicated. The writing on it says it was actually _created by_ Thor himself, not his followers. The one you have reminds me of it."

"Huh," Daniel said. "Where was your monument found?" he asked. 

Jack could hardly think straight. He needed to concentrate on this conversation with Daniel. Where would be interesting enough to peak Daniel's interest?

"China," Jack replied.

Daniel snorted.

"China's a big place," he said, but Daniel's expression showed Jack had his full attention.

"So," Jack continued, for the moment shoving his thoughts about the future into a compartment to consider later, "I was hoping for a chance to look at your artifact more closely. Get your insights into what it is," he barely stopped himself from saying _and how it works_.

Sandwich done, Daniel took a long pull on the cold bottle. Then he twisted in his chair and set both bare feet on the hot planks of the deck.

"And you, man from my future, have no interest, at all, whatsoever, in going to bed with me? " Daniel asked, standing up and offering Jack a hand out of his own chair.

Jack set down his empty plate and put his open bottle into the beer case and picked it up. Man from Daniel's future. He took Daniel's hand and let himself be pulled out of the chair.

"I didn't say that, _exactly_ ," he mumbled around Daniel's tongue in his mouth and lips on his.

He knew he shouldn't do this. But Daniel had never mentioned it, so probably Daniel never figured it out. And what if he did? Jack shut the door on that thought entirely. Daniel's kiss was sweet and exploratory. Jack gave in and wrapped his arms around his future best friend and let himself experience what he hardly let himself imagine before.

The bedroom curtains let in a dusty yellow light. The bed was rumpled and slept in. Daniel had almost no clothes on, but Jack had belt and boots and between them it was all gone and Jack was falling naked into Daniel's bed.

He knew this was a bad idea. Almost as bad as warning Daniel about Thor's Hammer. Except he wasn't sure that warning Daniel about Thor's Hammer would be a bad idea, and he didn't really know what it meant that he couldn't say no to this boy-Daniel's seduction, that he couldn't resist putting his hands on smooth tan skin, and soft pale skin, and course, hairy arms and legs.

They were tangled up together on the bed, Daniel's mouth hot and eager on his own, on his chest, on his belly and cock. He swelled into Daniel's wet excitement, and Daniel groaned in reply, his hard-on pressing into Jack's calf, Jack's foot captured between Daniel's thighs.

Jack hauled him up by his hair, stopping him before surprise and lust and long dry spells caused Jack to come right then and there.

Daniel smiled at him with red, wet lips, and crawled back up.

Jack let him resettle beside him then rolled on top of him, letting Daniel feel all his weight, a full-body press. Daniel's eyes went huge and dark and his body arched under Jack's, his new, deep groan like a prayer for Jack to do something. Anything.

It had to be a terrible idea to be doing this with a Daniel who wanted to remember every minute of every encounter with every lover, but who hadn't had any other lovers but Jack all summer. He let his erection slide against Daniel's, sweat and precum not quite enough lubricant, the friction just a little painful, Daniel clearly not caring as he writhed and gasped under him.

Daniel was cradling him between his legs, wrapping them tightly around him, rocking with him urgently. Would he remember Jack the first time he saw him, almost ten years in the future, ironically half a decade younger than Jack was now? Would Daniel know instantly, or only realize as time went by who Jack was and what their meeting meant? Would Daniel realize what Jack hadn't said?

Or would Daniel out him the first time they met, and change their whole world with a few badly timed comments? Get Jack kicked out of the program? Or get Daniel himself ejected, changing the course of the whole first trip to Abydos? But none of those things had happened, so they wouldn't happen? Because Jack and this afternoon were already part of the past, and nothing Jack did could change that. Right?

Daniel, panting hard against his neck, pressing openmouthed, breathless wet kisses there, suddenly bit him, hard, and Jack crashed through the barrier to orgasm, his come flooding between them.

Daniel took advantage of his distraction to roll him over. He humped against him roughly for another minute, then went rigid and still, and new heat washed over Jack's belly.

Daniel collapsed beside him, laughing.

"Okay, if you're going to laugh at me, I'm having a beer," Jack said, groping over the side of the narrow bed, fingertips barely able to snag the open mouth of his bottle. "Want one?" he asked after taking a drink. 

"Sure," Daniel said, taking Jack's bottle instead, and finishing it.

With a long-suffering sigh, Jack rolled over enough to grab the last two bottles. He opened another and handed the last one to Daniel.

They lay in satiated silence, drinking beer and drowsing, Jack trying hard to ignore the voices in his head. 

"So, you wanna go down to the department now, check out the Thor stele?" Daniel suddenly asked.

"Is that your idea of the 'discipline of the mind' that is 'one of the richest results of love?'" Jack replied grumpily.

Daniel laughed again.

"No! That's my idea of the ideal lover. Scintillating banter as foreplay, then fantastic sex, then intellectual pursuit as afterplay, with the possibility of more fantastic sex later!"

"Great," Jack replied, resting the cool beer bottle against his overheated face. "Just my luck, since my idea of the ideal lover is the guy who makes me another sandwich later."

Daniel laughed and sat up, practically bounding from the bed.

"Then you _are_ in luck!"

* * *

Jack munched on his crappy sandwich as Daniel adeptly maneuvered them though Los Angeles' streets on their way back to the University.

"What do you expect to find?" Daniel asked.

Jack expected to find that Thor was a twisted bastard. But that was nothing new and nothing he should really say to Daniel.

"Nothing in particular. The artifact I've seen doesn't have a good explanation about why we found it in China. I'm hoping your monument will shed some light on why these Thor cults, or whatever, were turning up in all the wrong places."

Daniel looked thoughtful. See. Jack did pay attention. He could be a pretend archaeologist, as long as Daniel didn't push too hard.

They walked into Daniel's office fifteen minutes later.

"Hey!" Daniel said. The Madonna look-alike was gone. The grad student, however, was still there. "Selene, I think you met Mac earlier?" Daniel asked, and that was it for introductions. Jack decided not to introduce himself as Angus MacGyver. There had to be people in academia who watched primetime television, after all. Was _MacGyver_ broadcasting yet? Jack wasn't sure.

Selene, the grad student, nodded to him absently. She was completely absorbed in the legal pad in front of her, comparing it to the rubbings lying beside it.

"Anything interesting?" Daniel asked, walking around to peer over her shoulder.

"Aren't _you_ doing the translation?" Jack asked, surprised.

Daniel, already showing the same rapt absorption that held Selene, shook his head.

"Ancient Norse isn't my strongest language. Leave the translation to the experts," he said.

"So what's it say?" Jack asked, wandering over to look at the actual runes on the stele.

Daniel looked up at him.

"Nothing that interesting. You can get the gist of it," he said, waving at the stone in front of Jack. Jack traced the angles and lines of the carved runes lightly with one finger.

"I leave the translation to the experts," Jack replied, smiling his most charming smile as he mimicked Daniel.

Daniel smiled back and walked over, himself touching the runes.

"The great God Thor, something something, offers protection to His, something something…"

"'Something, something?'" Jack complained. "This is what Knowles is putting you up in a beach house for?"

Daniel laughed.

"We've only got three sides," he said. "The fourth side was completely sheared off and pulverized in the collapse of the tomb. We found the obelisk in the rubble. Not that you would expect to find something like this in a tomb. It should have been in an outdoor location, appropriate to the worship of the God of Thunder."

Jack let it roll off him.

"What we are trying to determine is whether the monument was carved locally or whether it was brought in from outside – a trophy of a foreign war or a gift from travelers or something that arrived in Egypt via trade. Do you have any theories about your Chinese one? Is it like this?"

"There's a Chinese one?" Selene asked in surprise. She rose from the desk and walked around to look at the obelisk again, as if knowing there was one like it in China somehow changed the one lying right here in the office. "Is it intact? What does it say? Where did you find it, exactly?"

Jack ignored her questions.

"What's the rest of the inscription?"

Selene's took up the translation, her hands also straying over the surface of the rock, feeling the carving under her own fingers.

"Thor is generous… He can grant His faithful… He will defend… Etins fear… make wishes…"

"It's a very odd inscription," Daniel said. "Thor was more of a protector, not so much a provider."

Jack was starting to get an idea.

"I think it's a wish machine," he muttered.

"What?" Selene asked, turning to stare at him.

Jack shut his eyes and wished really, really hard to be back on P5X-432 with his Daniel and the rest of SG-1.

He cracked an eye open. Nope. Selene and Daniel were both still staring at him like he was a lunatic.

"Well, that sort of makes sense," Jack said. "I mean, I didn't wish myself here, did I? In fact…"

He stared at Daniel. He realized what they had been doing this afternoon. The afternoon of Daniel's twentieth birthday. 

He pointed an accusing finger at Daniel.

" _You_ did it!" He stopped himself before he added, _you little bastard_.

"I did not," Daniel replied calmly.

"Undo it," Jack ordered. "Wish me back." Daniel just gawped at him like he was crazy. Jack ignored the fact that Selene appeared to be edging toward the phone.

"Come on," Jack said encouragingly. "What can it hurt?"

Daniel sighed and rolled his eyes.

"So what am I supposed to wish?"

"No, wait," Jack said. "Any chance we can get this thing standing up?"

"No," Daniel said, raising his eyebrows and waving a hand. "As you can see, _it's broken_."

Jack glared at it.

"Fine," he said. "Wish that I was back on P5X-432."

Daniel closed his eyes and bowed his head.

Selene watched in clear disbelief.

 

[Click here for The Multiple Time Loops Ending](http://brainofck.livejournal.com/257350.html). (This is the first ending I wrote, which did not fit 's request for a happy ending. Stupid brain.)

[Click here for The There and Back Ending](http://brainofck.livejournal.com/257573.html). (This is the happy ending version. Yay!)

* * *

[1] [Information on Lunada Bay, if you're interested](http://www.surfline.com/surf-report/lunada-bay-southern-california_4935/travel/) Also, [video of surfers in Lunada Bay.](http://video.aol.com/video-detail/lunada-bay-surf-2-26-08/220462955) This video is awesome. If you don't watch it now, come back and watch it after you read my story. You can see the surf, the people, the cliffs.  
  


[2] One translation of this I found was:  


And from that time on I bathed in the Poem Of the Sea, star-infused and churned into milk, Devouring the green azures...


[3]The next line of the poem is:  
  
"...where a drowned man deep in thought/sometimes drifts by like flotsam..." 

**Author's Note:**

> I _totally_ blame this idea on NPR. Seriously. I was driving around one Saturday afternoon, innocently going to the grocery store with the toddler in the car seat, and Sloane Crosley was on recommending three summer books. She started by quoting Bret Easton Ellis'  The Informers:
> 
> "Bruce calls me, stoned and sunburned from Los Angeles..."

> 
> …and I _knew_ I _had_ to write beachbum Daniel. 
> 
> So here he is.
> 
> Love,  
> CK


End file.
